Fritz, Shelton move into fourth round of Canadian Open
Toronto: Second seed Taylor Fritz ousted the last remaining Canadian Gabriel Diallo 6-4, 6-2 to reach the fourth round of the Canadian Open.
Eyeing his second ATP Masters 1000 crown and first since his dream run at Indian Wells in 2022, Fritz will next face 19th seed Jiri Lehecka, the Czech who rallied past 15th seed Arthur Fils 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to advance.
Fritz broke to start the match and never really gave Diallo a chance to get back in it. The American was squeaky clean throughout, seemingly finding a way to come out on top on every big point. Once he broke to go up 3-1, the result began to feel inevitable and he added a second break late before serving out the match.
Elsewhere, fourth seed Ben Shelton registered a 6-7(8), 6-2, 7-6(5) win to improve to 5-0 in their ATP head-to-head series against Brandon Nakashima.
Into the fourth round of an ATP Masters 1000 event for the second time this season (Indian Wells QF), Shelton moved within one win of claiming his 100th tour-level victory. He will look to accomplish that feat against 13th seed Flavio Cobolli, who beat Fabian Marozsan 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. Shelton is competing this week at a career-high No. 7 in the ATP Rankings.
Shelton staged multiple comebacks to edge his countryman Nakashima. Barely anything went against serve in the opening frame, with Nakashima getting his second minibreak of the breaker on the final point. Shelton turned things around quickly in the second, racing out to a 3-0 and then breaking again to finish it.
Nakashima then seemed to flip the momentum in the opening game of the third with an early break, only for Shelton to respond soon after to level at 2-2. At 4-5 on Nakashima’s serve, Shelton had two match points but two nervy errors allowed his countryman to hold. The No. 4 seed raced out to an early lead in the tiebreak and had three more match points at 6-3.
Nakashima saved the first two but on the the third, the fifth overall, Shelton blasted his 19th ace to finally finish off the win.